Jock Lewes - Co-Founder of the SAS

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As well as being the long overdue biography of this highly gifted and complex individual, Jock Lewes, Co-Founder of the SAS, is a major contribution to the bibliography of British Special Forces. They owed much of their success to the scientific talents of Major Ralph Bagnold, whose sun-compass invention revolutionised desert travel.

Sergeant Jim Almonds was with Jock Lewes when he died and wrote in his diary: “I thought Jock was one of the bravest men I have ever met – an officer and a gentleman. Thereafter he spent time in pre-war Berlin where he was first seduced by Hitler's socialist policies and by a young Nazi supporter, one of the two loves of his life, but soon became disillusioned, establishing links with opposition factions.He was passionately convinced that the need was for men who race, and who would be happy together, and that the technique of rowing style was something to be taught by the coaches.

He, history has recorded, is credited as the nominal founder of the SAS but as he himself expresses in this quote, and this book certainly bears out, Lewes (1913–1941) was a key shaper of the elite service’s tactics and personnel.Lewes was instrumental in the unit's success, introducing pioneering parachute techniques, including jumping out of moving trucks at 40mph. In November 1941, Lewes took part in the first SAS operation - a parachute drop behind enemy lines in Libya to attack enemy airfields. While at Tobruk, Lewes was repeatedly approached by Stirling who was keen to recruit him into ‘L’ Detachment Special Air Service Brigade.